Keep the value already in the textile
A circular textile system aims to keep products and materials useful and reduce waste. Repair, resale, rental, remaking, and recycling are different tools. Their value depends on whether they displace new production, how they are operated, and what happens to items that cannot be reused.
Start with use
Designing a garment for durability and maintaining it through repair may keep the original product in use. Resale can put an unwanted item with a new user. Rental may work for pieces used infrequently, but transport and cleaning matter. Remaking uses an existing product as input to a new one. Recycling recovers material when higher-value use is no longer practical.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation groups circular fashion business models around more use per user, more users per product, and making new products from existing products or materials. That framework helps distinguish a real shift in use from a recycling claim added to a high-volume production model.
Questions for a circular claim
- How many additional uses did the system create?
- Did it replace a new purchase or add another one?
- What are the collection, cleaning, transport, and processing costs?
- What happens to products the system cannot use?
Sources
Related: care and repair and Goal 12.